Harghita Christian Camp: MPPC Ministry Partner
Short Term Mission Summary

The sun rests on the distant hills. The sound of laughter and children running creates background music for the work that is Camp Harghita. A brightly colored playground is filled with children hanging upside down, swinging and climbing across a chain bridge. Below a sport court is filled with boys calling to each other and though the language is incomprehensible to me, the words have meaning as the soccer ball is passed and kicked into the net. Cheers erupt. Up the hill a bit, children in wheelchairs are gathered around a table working on a project related to the bible lesson the young pastor Otto had taught that morning.

One cannot understand Camp Harghita in isolation. I came expecting to visit and help at a Christian camp for children at-risk in Romania. Although that was true, like many of my expectations in mission work, I needed to set aside my own agenda to see more clearly how God is working. As always, His work was abundantly more powerful than anything we could devise despite our months of planning and preparation. I allowed the Holy Spirit to make the unexpected wind shift, adjusted the tiller of my own expectations and allowed the gentle wind to direct me to what He would have me experience and see in Romania.

Harghita sits in a ministry web, nothing occurs without the support and reciprocity of the ministries and churches in this Transylvanian region of Romania that is largely ethnic Hungarian. The region passed into Romanian control following the carving up of nations that occurred after World War II. Like many parts of Europe, especially Eastern Europe, it is an area that has frequently been traumatized by world politics. It is a region that never gave up hope for a better future and the small, faithful churches have nurtured that hope based on the even stronger truth of God’s abiding love for these people. The Hungarians that populate this area, refused to allow the darkness of communism to descend upon their land and extinguish the light of their faith.

We met an English missionary named Margaret who had been a faithful supporter of the pastors in this area and later part of the entrepreneurial vision that launched Camp Harghita. She once described Romania under the communist regime as “being under the crucible of Satan.” In early years of her ministry, she was involved in smuggling bibles into the courageous pastors who met her and her colleagues on dark country roads. “Flash our lights twice when we pass, then drive on for a kilometer, turn around and if all is safe, we would make the exchange on the side of the road.” Many of these pastors, if caught, were subject to interrogations, beatings or worse. As a nurse, she was called on to help one young pastor after a particularly severe beating. “How do you endure?” she asked. “Don’t let’s talk about my experience,” he answered. “Let’s talk about the suffering of Christ.”

Pastor Andrew, the director of Camp Harghita for the last several years was the second director of the camp. He talked about how he had tried to gather children together during the years when communism gripped his country. The summer camps, youth groups and children’s ministries we take for granted in our own churches were denied to the churches in Romania. Worship services were allowed on a strictly supervised basis but evangelism was strictly prohibited, an antithetical concept to so many Christians. Andrew gathered some children together and began to teach them about Jesus, sharing the simple Bible stories that make up the foundation of our faith. He was brought in by the secret police and interrogated for many hours. His dream of planting seeds of faith in children’s hearts was thwarted for the moment but came to fruition in Camp Harghita when he and other local pastors joined together in 1990 and began the ministry with land purchased through the support of Western believers. In spring of 1991, the group brought the Director of Missions to Europe to view the rugged and rustic site where they announced that 200 children would come to escape poverty and hardship and to play and learn about the love of Jesus. “Impossible,” she thought when a still, small voice declared in her heart, “With God all things are possible.” On a hot summer day in July, camp opened with worship services, a brass band and a visiting choir. I think there was perhaps a richer, deeper music resounding in heaven that day.

Today the camp serves over 2000 children and families including a new outreach program for handicapped children and their families. Barnabus House is a unique ministry in Romania, providing refuge for children with severe disabilities or terminal illness. The camp is named in honor of the young son of another faithful pastor we met, Pastor Veres. His son was kidnapped during the communist regime and given an injection that left him severely handicapped as a result of the father’s ongoing Christian leadership. The communists had twice before tried to assassinate Pastor Veres by poisoning and other forms of intimidation but he remained “strong and courageous” in his work never dreaming the evil that would unleash horror in His family. But all things work together for good and in His kingdom, the weak are mighty. Despite his disabilities, Barnabus dreamed of a place where children like him could come and play and Barnabus House was born.

Camp Harghita even brings children in from Chernobyl and Bela-Russia. The poverty and shadow of communism grows darker as you move further east in Europe and many of the children in the Ukraine and other areas live in even more difficult circumstances than the children of Romania. Pastor Andrew has retired from Camp Harghita and is handing over the reins of leadership to Pastor Gyula, an inspired leader in the church of Romania. Pastor Andrew is pursuing a call to launch a similar camp model, this time on the slopes of the mountains of western Ukraine. Pastor Gyula has many years experience in significant leadership roles and shared with us his vision of how Camp Harghita can be self-supporting and yet how the ministry could be further expanded to full year outreach and discipleship ministries to children and adults in Romania. The church has wedded itself with the local communities and many of the children have returned from camp and brought their parents into the small village churches faithfully planted throughout the countryside. In addition, these churches have then reached into the communities and brought new ministries to children living in poverty, abandonment or left, under communism to rot in poorly run orphanages and group homes.

As part of our trip, we were privileged to visit two additional ministries in the area. Harghita is a region that used to have an orphanage that served over 400 children. Many of those children have spent summers at Camp Harghita. As part of a nationwide effort (partially in response to international pressure) to close the state run orphanages, the children are being relocated into small foster homes. The church has become an invaluable partner in calling to families to create homes for these children. We met a lovely young family who are raising five foster children in addition to their own two biological children. They hoped to some day adopt these children. Four of the foster children are siblings and it is clear that the bond that has been maintained between these children is a strong bond that has enabled them to also attach to their new family. Later that afternoon, we worshipped in the local church that this family attends. Two of the foster children shared my chair as the church was overflowing with first time visitors. The children of that village had attended Camp Harghita and proud parents filled the simple sanctuary to hear their children sing songs and recite stories learned at camp. It is the sincere prayer of the pastors in this area that these families will continue to attend church.

Two other unexpected visitors attended church that afternoon. Two young women we had met at a state facility for the severely disabled. Again, I had been awed by the courage and vision of a people that had survived so much darkness in their land. These young women gave us a tour of a residential facility that serves children paralyzed, speechless, with limbs and faces distorted by whatever medical or chemical forces had warped their development in the womb. Many of these children had been abandoned on the streets by their parents and the older ones had been virtually caged or tied to dirty, unkempt beds during communism. At first, I was taken aback by the sight of these tragic children sitting in beds reaching out and making indecipherable sounds. But as we walked around holding an outreached hand, stroking a forehead, speaking gently and singing to them of Jesus’ love, I realized there was a higher beauty in that room. As I sat and gently stroked and played with a three year girl with big brown eyes and the smile of an angel, I listened to the challenges the women who run this program and yet how they continue to overcome. I was again awed by how the mustard seeds of faith can grow into huge trees of love. These two women had never visited the church in that town. That afternoon, as the room filled with local families, I could see the Pastor’s face light up as they entered and his wife hurriedly greeted them and found seats for them near the front. Outreach ministries often occur in unexpected ways.

As communism has receded in Romania and the people’s pride and personality has reemerged, the bleakness draping the land has also receded. Colorful houses line the streets, gardens were filled with blooms and the local towns shone with civic pride. Like the blossoms in the parks, the faithful ministries of the ethnic Hungarians we visited and the efforts of these Christians are also blooming. Many small churches have been planted in the picturesque villages nestled in the rolling hills of Transylvania. The churches are small and far-flung, many pastors we met shepherd 5-7 churches simultaneously, driving rutted country roads to share the gospel and disciple these small communities. It is a land in a time warp as the primary occupation is still farming, mostly with handheld implements like the scythe we often saw on the shoulders of men heading out to harvest hay. We often had to share the roads with cows making their slow, lumbering way home in the evening light, udders full of the milk that is one way these poor families sustain themselves. We laughed as we tried to capture images of the horse drawn carts filled with hay, or goats scampering aside from our car as we passed. Children waved as ladies watched of an unknown age as care lines early the faces of those who struggle with the basics of life. Yet hints of modernity exist even in these small villages lost in time. Few people, of course, have computers and internet cafes are seen in the larger towns providing, for a few cents, a connection to a larger world. Cell phone towers sit atop hills and I could not help but be taken aback by the juxtaposition of our driver talking to camp on the cell phone while he maneuvered our car through a herd of cows. Evening fell and our laughter, songs and talk ebbed as we made our way back to Camp Harghita and I contemplated the inter connectivity of the web of ministries that we were privileged to observe and participate in during our trip to Romania.